


Pearls and Diamonds

by sunaga



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Character of Color, Character of Color, Community: xmen_tales, F/F, Fairy Tale Retellings, Female Character of Color, Lesbian Character of Color, Little Mermaid, Love, POV Character of Color, Revisionist Fairy Tale, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaga/pseuds/sunaga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel strikes a bargain with the White Witch in order to win Raven's love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pearls and Diamonds

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted September 8, 2012 for xmen_tales. With thanks to [afrocurl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/) and [red](http://archiveofourown.org/users/red) for betaing, [aqueoushumor](http://aqueoushumor.tumblr.com/) for suggesting mindporn, and the xmentales chatroom.
> 
> In addition to the original fairy tale, this fic owes much to Jareth's monologue in [Dryad13](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/38994/)'s [Into the Rose Garden](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1903586/), [Ehryel](http://ehryel.tumblr.com/tagged/disney)'s Disney [artwork](http://x-arielle.deviantart.com/gallery/24050289), and my classmate who was the first to show me the subtext of the mermaid's bargain with the sea witch. <3

**one.**

Angel doesn't believe in love at first sight.  Life's too full of shit, and if there is such a thing, it would end in a brutal, messy, early death for both parties.

  
But when Raven Darkholme drifts into her life, Angel stays her course.

 

It's some party or other, the rafters hung with paper ribbons and glitter everywhere.  The lights flash in time with the bass and all the people are beautiful.

 

 _Raven_ is beautiful, all light and energy and teeth.  She changes her dress and skin, and it's more than a party trick: it's magic that marks Raven as kin.  She stands before Angel and offers her hand.   She takes Angel dancing and they are the prince and princess, two princesses, this midnight ball is all their own, and the motion of their bodies feels like being held by the sea.

 

As Angel runs to fetch them drinks, she hears Raven speak.  "I don't date mutants.  I'm freak enough for myself, I couldn't handle someone else's brand of it." Even then, the words still sound like pearls and rubies--all the riches of the world that Angel will never touch or own, that she may have in Raven.

 

Angel doesn't return to Raven's side that night.

 

 

 

She goes to the White Bitch instead. 

 

They've known each other for a long time.  She owns The Grotto, and Angel's been bouncing there awhile.  Angel doesn't look the part, but that's ok--all the better when she forces herself against pushy clients and spits fire down their shirts.

 

The Grotto is a congregation for misfits, a roof over those who don't know what they want, a small corner where normality is the outlier.  A strange meeting of people, places, planes, and edges that all converge under Emma Frost's watchful gaze.  They all come looking for something: love, sex, warm bodies, money, liquor, happiness.  Emma can almost always give people what they want.  With her omega-level telepathy, Emma changes people as easily as she speaks.

 

Angel thinks changing yourself is stupid, but then she falls in love, and people in love do stupid things.

 

So for once, she asks to see Emma.  She's a bundle of self-loathing, hope, desperation, and above all she is a fool in love--Emma can read it across her body and in her mind.

 

"Angel."  Emma inclines her head.  She looks like she's scheming something, and it's quite likely she is.  Her legs are crossed and her hands steepled; she's wearing nothing but white as she always does.

 

"I want a favor."

 

"Doesn't everybody," she says, perhaps affectionately.  The ice shifts in her glass of liquor.

 

"I want to be human."  The word catches on her tongue like a thistle, and it hurts to pull it out.

 

Emma raises one carefully arched eyebrow.  She uncrosses her legs and takes a sip from her glass.  It's a calculated gesture, and Angel stands in the doorway waiting, fists clenched, pride laid across the table.

 

"I can do that.  Come here."  She beckons with her hands, one finger curling at a time.

 

Angel approaches and leans down, her face falling into Emma's open palms.  She's giving an eyeful of her breasts, but she doesn't care.

 

Emma's fingers paint circles across her cheeks, her scalp.  "This is something Charles Xavier could do."  Emma's breath is against her face.

 

Angel opens her eyes.  "Charles won't do it.  He doesn't like people who hide and deny their gifts."  _Neither do I_ , she thinks.

Emma's eyes close briefly as she smiles.  Her thumbs brushing over the edges of Angel's cheeks, Angel thinks she's passed a test.

 

"Quite true.  Xavier doesn't give people what they want like I do."  She stands, keeping her fingers around Angel's jaw, and forcing Angel to stand with her.

 

"What I am going to do..." Emma murmurs, "is block your abilities.  It'll be like telling your body to forget you have legs.  I'm going to have to go inside your mind for this, and you need to stay perfectly still and keep your wings to yourself.  Can you do that for me?"

 

"Yes," Angel breathes.

 

"I'll give you three months and a day to decide if this is what you want.  If by that time, you have earned the girl's love in return, I will make this permanent."

 

"Why the limit?"

 

Emma shakes her head.  "Silly girl, I know these things.  You should too.  Bargains have all sorts of fine prints and traps and clauses.  This is mine."

 

 

 

"Are you sure you want to do this, hon?"

 

Angel's wings flutter nervously, and Emma's hand rests upon her back--slowly, carefully, she drags her hand up to the glassy surface.  Angel shudders, and her wings still.

 

"Yes," Angel croaks.

 

"Let's, then."  And Emma Frost bridges the distance between them with a kiss.

 

It is a lure, meant to distract, and it's effective.  Emma's mouth is smooth, and her lip gloss makes Angel's lips tingle, but that's not enough to ignore the press of Emma's mind.  It's unexpectedly erotic. 

 

Emma probes through her mind, and Angel can feel her navigating her way through, each turn and acceleration making her shudder.

 

She can feel Emma smile.  _I know what I'm doing, don't worry._ Emma's hands fall away and she pulls down Angel's blouse, exposing her breasts, and takes a peak into her mouth.  Her fingers keep moving down, unbuttoning her shorts and slipping beneath her panties.

 

Angel gasps and yanks Emma's hair.  Emma looks up, her eyes loud and rebellious.

 

"Is sleeping with you part of the deal?"

 

"No.  But many wish that," she adds with a smile, removing her mouth from Angel's skin. 

 

"Arrogant," Angel breathes, and pulls her back up for a kiss.

 

"What about your true love?" Emma wickedly says against her lips.

 

"Don't flatter yourself."  Angel grabs the straps of Emma's blouse and yanks them down.  "This is sex; you can have one without the other.  We're not together--now do you want to come or not?"

 

They're still half-dressed when they make it to the bed.  Emma's in her bra, and Angel's top is pulled beneath her breasts, her pants somewhere on the floor.  Emma doesn't bother divesting her of her panties.  Emma's fingers push into Angel at the same rhythm she pushes through her mind, and Angel rocks her hips.

 

"Curl your fingers," Angel demands.

  
"Bossy," Emma replies.  She withdraws her fingers and lowers her face between Angel's legs to gently bite her clit.

 

After Angel comes, she pulls Emma down onto the bed and crawls between her legs.

 

 

 

When Angel wakes, Emma's already in front of the mirror.  Emma looks at her in it, and then Angel feels fingers grip her cheeks, a trick of telepathy.  "There are more rules to this.  Hints, if you will."

 

Angel closes her eyes and nods her head.  Emma releases her from her grip.  Angel rubs her cheek and looks resentfully at Emma for the rough treatment.

 

Emma steps aside and sits at her boudoir, looking at her hair and adjusting it.  "First, you can't say that you're a mutant, or anything remotely like it."  She turns towards Angel who is still lounging in the sheets.  Angel prides herself on not being one of those women who clutch the sheets after sex.

 

Emma turns slowly in her seat, throwing her arm across the back, and crosses her ankles.  Emma gives her a slow once-over.  "You don't shave?"

 

"A bit late to notice that."

 

They share in the detente and then Emma continues.  "The second rule is that you cannot try to access your powers, any of them, regardless of if you have a mutation you didn't tell me about.  I don't care if you have a third eye, don't use it.  If you don't follow the rules, it won't be pleasant for you."

 

"That's it?  _Not pleasant_?"

 

"I could be like Charles and tell you the nitty gritty about nerves and bio feedback and placebo effects, but that's dull, and it wouldn't matter to you anyway, right?"

 

Angel nods.  " But I need to know the consequences."

 

"It'll hurt.  And I don't mean like a papercut, I mean you'll want the prescription meds, but nothing will work, because they don't make medication for people like us.  Not legally, anyway.  And I trust you wouldn't do the risky thing and take black-market, _illegal_ drugs, right?"

 

She narrows her eyes.  "Are you sure these aren't rules?"

 

Emma purses her lips.  "Positive.  Just looking out for your best interests."

 

"Liar."  Emma laughs, and the sound is rough like sand.

"Do you always fuck your clients?"

 

"It was pleasant, wasn't it?"  Emma muses.

 

Angel rolls her eyes.  "That was a diversion."

 

"Would you rather it hurt?"

 

"No."

 

"I thought so.  It's time for you to leave now."  Emma turns back to her mirror and begins applying her makeup.  Angel's not sure why she bothers, when all Emma has to do is project.

 

Angel shrugs her clothes on, not bothering to button her blouse all the way.  As she leaves, Emma wishes her luck.

 

 

 

**two.**

Angel remembers everything about their night together, its memory saturated, turning the night into technicolor vibrancy.  Raven's voice is like falling safely, and Angel closes her eyes to remember it and find her.

 

Raven's at the museum, sitting in the roof's long shadow wrapped in a coat the color of slate monuments.

 

"Hi," Angel sighs.  She is breathless and waiting at last, ready.

 

"I didn't expect to see you again," Raven says from her seat on the ground.  She looks at Angel with no expectations--that's new, thrilling--and just a little bit of curiosity.

 

"Wanna pick up where we left off last time?"

 

"Yeah, come here."  She twists her wrist and Angel sinks down to her knees and into Raven's lap.  She leans down for her kiss.

 

Angel shivers inside Raven's arms, and what starts as electric turns hot and slick.

 

Angel grinds against her, wishing for something to press herself against, and then there is.  Angel gasps, thinking she's just imagining the hard pressure, but when she presses against it, there's no mistaking the jut of flesh pushing through Raven's skirt and through Angel's panties.

 

Angel breaks off the kiss for a moan, and looks down.

 

"Perk of the mutation," Raven says, and that's all that's said for a long time.

 

 

 

Things are beautiful, and if they are normal, Angel says nothing of it.  Angel still lives in her dingy apartment that's half-mutant, half-human.  She bounces at The Grotto at night--she can still cut a mean figure even without her mutation, and it's not like anyone _knows_ she can't spit acid any more--and in the day she's pulled into Raven's spinning exuberance.

 

They go to coffee shops, they watch movies and touch each other, they grab hot dogs in the park, they laugh and smile and kiss and hold hands, and they make love at all hours of the day in every possible place.

 

If Angel misses the curling spiral of flight and the thrill of acid spilling from her lips, she does not dwell on it because she believes in love and happiness, and her eyes are alight with the city lights.

 

 

 

She comes home to Emma smoking on her kitchen table.  "How's it going, darling?"

 

Angel feels a twinge at Emma sitting there so casually, the way her legs hang with pointed toes, the arm tossed carelessly behind her, when she and Raven had made love there only last night

 

Angel shrugs her shoulderbag onto the couch.  She stays standing.  "Fine."

 

"I wasn't going to just leave you alone.  That would be barbaric."

 

"Do all of your clients warrant this attention?"  She picks up the clothes she left on the floor, folds them, and places them in the hamper next to the bathroom.

 

"No," Emma says from up on high.  "But not all of my clients work for me."

 

Angel keeps picking up, Emma keeps smoking, the smell filling the rooms.

 

"Enjoying being human?" Emma asks examining her nails.  It's a purposeful gesture; Emma's nails are smooth and perfect as always.  She'd never go anywhere without looking her best.

 

"Yeah."

 

"Are you sure what this is what you want to do?"

 

"I am."

 

"Then don't let the boy take her."

 

Angel's made her way to the kitchen.  Running the water for her dishes, she stands in front of Emma, brash and arrogant with the might of Raven's love behind her.  "What are you talking about?"

 

"There's always a boy for girls like her," Emma says leaning forward.  She blows smoke into Angel's face, and long after she leaves, Angel's mouth tastes of smoke.

 

 

 

Angel meets Hank on the corner of Sixteenth and K Street.  Raven wants to go to the science museum, and her friend has a membership pass to bring plus-two along.  Angel gets there first, and Hank is tall and lanky, unconfident in his big shoes and plaid shirt.  He'd be a charmer, she thinks, if only he knew how to live in his body.

 

She says hello, Hank stutters his reply, they make idle chatter.

 

Raven comes in a blur, her scarf hanging out her purse, and her hair tangled with wind.  She links her arms through both of theirs, and they go three-by-three into the museum.

 

Angel isn't blind; she sees the way Hank looks at Raven--like knows like, after all--but Angel says nothing, for she is nothing if not loyal to her own interests.  Raven is with _her_ , and it is not Hank who knows what Raven tastes like, the way her body pulls on her fingers as she comes. 

 

 

 

Hank drops his credit card in the gift shop, and is lucky enough for Raven to pick it up.   Raven has work, so she calls ahead and lets Hank know Angel'll drop it by.

 

Angel doesn't mind.  She likes the city streets in all their dirty resplendency.  She makes the half hour walk with her breath clouding the air, and Hank rings her up to his apartment.

 

"Your card," she says, handing it to him between her fingers.

 

"Thanks."  He looks to the spot just right of her ear.

 

She gives him a slow once over, enjoying the way he slowly turns red.  "Nice feet," she states with a slow, genuine smile.  It's not even one Raven gets to see often, because sometimes there's that spark only between mutants who are without regret.

 

Hank sputters, and Angel knows she misstepped when he hurriedly pushes his large feet back into too-small, _normal_ shoes.

 

"Don't worry," she says, but he is, and there's nothing she can do.  She wants to say they're alike, two of a kind, siblings in a strange world that's left them behind.  Instead, she presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

 

 

 

"He's sweet."  Raven has stars in her eyes, and Angel is alarmed.  They're in bed together, and Raven strokes Angel's arms with delicate fingertips.  "He's sweet, and probably too shy, but he treats me like gold and I just melt," she adds with a sigh that speaks of long-held daydreams.

 

Angel wants to say, "But I treat you like gold," but isn't that what love is anyway?

 

"If we go steady, he seems the monogamous type, I won't be able to see you the same way." She rolls her face across the pillow to look at Angel, her golden hair tangled and thorny and taffy starshine across the pillows.   "Just wanted to let you know."

 

Angel should've seen this coming; she thinks her heart is on her sleeve, that love can be read in her palm and she is foolish.  She forgets to speak, and Raven is holding an entirely different conversation.

 

"Cool," is what Angel concedes.

 

 

 

In the morning, Angel removes herself from the sheets, Raven still wound up in them.  Angel makes no reference that Hank is a mutant, too much freak for her to handle, that he would not give what she already has to love her.  "You'll make quite the pair," is all she says, and Raven presses her small smile into her pillowcase.

 

 

 

**three.**

Angel returns to the White Witch.  It goes like this:

 

"He can have her."

 

"Is this your choice?"

 

"Yes."

 

Emma folds her hands very carefully on the empty table.  Angel's never seen The Grotto this empty and dark; only small lights flicker in the corner of her eyes, and Emma is the most radiant thing in the room with her diamond earrings and white dress.  The magic of the place is stripped away, the scent of ammonia hanging in the air.  There's only the two of them.

 

Emma leans across the empty table for her kiss to undo all of this, her foot tracing a path up her calf.  And then they're not sitting anymore, and Emma's hands slide beneath the hem of Angel's shirt.  She pulls up Angel's shirt, stroking and kneading the muscles between her shoulder blades.  Angel parts her mouth, and Emma licks her way in.

 

And Emma is in her head again, pulling her apart and slotting her together again and there is fire in her throat and --

 

Angel breathes in, tosses her shirt aside, and her wings unfurl in The Grotto's darkened, empty rooms.

 

 

 

They stumble into Emma's rooms once more and fall into bed.  Angel is proud to say she makes Emma come before any of their clothes are off.  It turns out the White Witch doesn't only wear white lingerie--"It's trademark honey, I have to sell the brand"--but all of it is sumptuous, luxurious, and rich.  Angel admires it all, but still rips it apart.

 

Having sex with her wings out is different.  She can't be pushed into the mattress, a body lying long over her.  She's always on top, or she's carefully on her side, balanced on the edge of the bed.  There're always chairs and walls, as well.  It's a worthwhile trade though, for the way Emma strokes her to orgasm just through her wings, the way she breaks her apart and pieces her together, because with her wings, it's just one orgasm after another.

 

 

 

Angel hates pillowtalk, but she speaks and Emma listens.

 

Emma is still her employer.  Emma says she doesn't mind being a sugar momma, and Angel doesn't object.  It's practical, but she has more to do than sit at home and wait for Emma to come home, so she'll continue bouncing, just at another place maybe.

 

There're still things to be said though.

 

"I need to ask you this."

 

Emma narrows her eyes in concern.  "Ask away, hon."

 

"What is this between us?"

 

"Do we really need to be as gauche to put labels to it?"

 

"You're a telepath, you don't know what it's like to _not_ know.  I do, and I need to know."

 

"It's Raven.  I see."

 

She wants to curse her for being cold enough to throw that in her face, but it's true.

 

"Yes," Angel says instead.  "I don't want to love you if that's not the offer on the table."

 

"You have no sense of risk."

 

"I do.  You know that."

 

"Yes."  Emma pauses.  "I don't love you.  But this isn't just sex either.  Like you said, I'm a telepath; there are things we think of differently.  I know the human mind, and there are..."  She looks dreamily off and motions with her hand.

 

"There are things we understand that most people don't bother putting into words."

 

"Then why aren't you fucking Charles?"

 

"Who says I haven't?" She replies with a sharp smile.

 

"The fact that Lehnsherr shares as well as a toddler."

 

Emma lowers her eyes, and her eyelashes cast shadows upon her cheeks.  Her smile spreads.

 

"To answer your question then: as I said.  I'm not in love with you, but it's not just sex.  There's affection, there's love, there's care and regard and respect.  I give to you all these things, not expecting anything in return.

 

"Although an orgasm or two would be nice."

 

Only Emma would sound so magnanimous.

 

"Is this the part where I tell you how I feel?"  Angel adds after waiting.

 

"If you wish; you know I already know."

 

"You don't _risk_ anything."

 

"But I do.  I may be sure, but telepaths never entirely are, unless they're willing to truly and fully understand another person.  It's an intimacy of a different kind.

 

"It's not one I desire, that kind of knowledge kills the love I want.  So yes, there is risk.  Just less.  But just because I'm a mind reader doesn't mean I can read the heart just as easily.  The mind is good at deceiving itself.

 

"Love is too simple, too encompassing.  This is what I offer, and perhaps it will grow into what you think of as love."

 

Angel is tempted to ask what Emma would call it.  Angel would know what was on the tip of Emma's tongue: that the answer is already given; what she feels is beyond Angel's normal mind, but perhaps she doesn't know all of Emma for she would be surprised when Emma replied:

 

"Love."

 

But Angel does not ask, and this is merely a figment of smoke.

 

Instead, she says, "Alright," because it is enough.  Then, she pulls the sheets over herself and Emma and they are rocked to sleep by the melody of the city, its sounds like the murmur of the ocean.


End file.
